Perhaps it is an inevitability. When a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the reaction of the agency for whom he or she works (or the U.S. Postal Service), is often one of lack of supportive behaviors, to propose an understatement. Reacting to a reactionary response, however, is not always the intelligent thing to do.

When the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal Service recognizes a need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS or CSRS, the natural and instinctive thing to do is to reference the hostile work environment in one’s Statement of Disability (SF 3112A), thinking that statements about, and references to, an agency which has further exacerbated the severity and extent of one’s medical condition, will help to further the cause of attaining an approval for a Federal Disability Retirement application from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Such a strategy, however, may well backfire, and one needs to be cautious in approaching the formulation of one’s Statement of Disability when consideration is given to including information concerning circumstances which may constitute a hostile work environment.

Relevant facts are always helpful; helpful facts are often necessary; and sufficiency of facts is always necessary. However, in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from OPM, discretion is the better part of valor, and that is especially true when submitting a Federal or Postal Medical Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Federal Disability Retirement Attorney

To “walk in another person’s shoes” is a sentiment which attempts to foster empathy for the plight of another. We tend to believe that if the “other person” had an understanding of the entirety of one’s circumstances, that there would awaken an altered perspective.

“Feeling”, of course, is quite different from “knowing”, and thus do we have, in this era of modernity, that which is identified as one’s “emotional quotient”, as distinct from the traditional “IQ” criteria.

For the Federal or Postal employee considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, the conceptual distinction between “feeling” and “knowing” is one which should be considered throughout the course of putting together one’s Federal Disability packet. For, it is ultimately a third party — a stranger in a gargantuan bureaucracy, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — who must be “touched” in order to approve one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.

What is said; how it is said; the compliance with the legal criteria applied; how persuasive; whether the emotive content follows and reinforces the factual delineations; and the extent of the logical nexus created between one’s Federal position and the medical condition suffered; all of these in their complex intersection and combination serve to create a picture of a person’s medical condition, and the impact of that condition upon one’s ability/inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

One can approach the entire endeavor and simply say, “The only thing that matters is whether you meet the legal criteria or not”. On the other hand, you may consider that, as human beings are fallible creatures, and not mere automatons, there may well be an emotional quotient which must be factored in, and in order to tap into such a vast resource of non-objectivity, one must consider one’s words carefully; for, in the end, it is language which creates the picture, as in the very picture of “walking in another’s shoes”.

Often, when one has been embroiled in a prolonged battle with another person, an organization, agency, etc., the embattled state itself takes on a life of its own, and decisions which should be based upon a rational perspective, what is in one’s best interest, etc., are cast aside. That is why divorce proceedings — ones which involve little children — are such traumatic events to witness. But domestic relations litigation is not the only type of proceedings which tear at one’s soul.

Often, a Federal or Postal employee will be involved in countless years of procedural and administrative litigation — including EEO filings, formal grievances, lawsuits filed in Federal courts, etc. — which take their toll upon one’s family, one’s career, and one’s health. Sometimes, the engagement of litigation becomes a way of life, and the daily turmoil constitutes the norm by which one lives.

When one’s health is impacted, however, the Federal or Postal Worker who considers filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, will sometimes allow for the years of battle to cloud one’s judgment. While historical narratives concerning the background of one’s medical conditions may be somewhat appropriate in preparing and formulating one’s Federal Disability Retirement Applicant’s Statement of Disability, one should be cautious in filing a narrative of emotion — that exhaustive rant against a particular supervisor or coworker; against the agency; and against the world which has turned into an enemy of daily turmoil and emotional upheaval.

At any extrapolated slice of a person’s life, the identity, character, narrative and personality of an individual is an incomplete description; but a description representing a particular period of a person’s life, together with the multiple preceding, intervening and subsequent sections, constitute the entirety of one’s “life story”.

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is often difficult for the Federal or Postal employee to find, choose, and apply the “right words” in describing the medical conditions and how they impact one’s positional duties; then to further delineate the impact upon one’s personal life. For, everyone wants to tell “the whole story”, thinking that the narration of a fractured autobiography reflects an incomplete compendium of a greater complexity of truth. But from the perspective of the “other” — i.e., in this case, the case worker at the Office of Personnel Management — it is necessary to tell the anomaly of the incomplete complete story: a slice of life, incomplete in comparison to the totality of a person’s life, but complete in that it answers the questions posed on SF 3112A, and satisfies the legal criteria which forms the basis of an approval or disapproval.

A person’s life can never be captured by an incomplete narrative; and just as a semicolon is a grammatical indicator where the story is meant to continue, so the complexity of a person’s life story — encompassing value, truth and relevance in a world devoid of a teleological framework — can only be captured imperfectly in any Applicant’s Statement of Disability. The key, therefore, is to recognize the inability to tell a complete story; and, often, it is best if someone else tells the story for you.

In preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, it is often difficult to maintain an objective perspective on one’s own case, precisely because of the intimate knowledge, relationship, and involvement one has with the particular medical conditions one suffers from.

Sometimes, of course, “maintaining an objective perspective” can backfire — where the argument made or the formulation of the applicant’s statement of disability, conveys little or no emotional undertone. But the opposite of that particular perspective is normally the case — where one’s own personal involvement and relationship to a case fails to state the facts, circumstances, medical elements and their relationship to one’s inability to perform one’s job, in a manner which is neither coherent nor relevant.

In preparing and formulating a Federal Disability Retirement application, the problem with a narrative involving one’s own medical condition is not because of its emotive content, for such emotional substance can often be effective in persuasive discourse; rather, the problem with it normally has to do with the coherence of the narrative itself.

Emotion is necessary for the conveyance of genuineness; only, don’t let the emotion get in the way of telling one’s story. For the true narrator tells the tale such that the audience feels the heart of the story, without ever knowing that the narration itself is the cause of the emotional upheaval.

Whether justified or not, the conceptual interconnection between objectivity and credibility is inseparable. This general rule is no different in filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS. The appearance of objectivity naturally lends itself to credibility of an application. If too much emotional fervor is infused into an application, the credibility of the application is immediately undermined. Now, because any discussion concerning a medical condition, the impact of a particular medical condition upon one’s ability or inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of a job; impact upon one’s personal life, etc., inherently and necessarily encapsulates an emotional perspective, does this mean that most — if not all — disability retirement applications are somewhat undermined at the outset? No, of course not. The characterization of the application; the tone, tenor and approach, are all conveyed in the narrative of the application. This is precisely why it is often dangerous for applicant to be one and the same as the person who prepares the Federal Disability Retirement application. The subjective cannot become the objective without great effort; and few are able to expend the proper effort to effectuate the balanced tone of objectivity.

When a Federal or Postal employee is considering filing for Federal Disability retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, there are many and varying conflicting responses, wrapped and bundled in emotional turmoil, reactionary and concerned viewpoints, etc. Stories of a “hostile work environment”, of discriminatory actions, harassing supervisors, etc., are often part of the “narrative” of a person considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement.

One must be careful, however, that when the affirmative decision to file for disability retirement is made, that only those relevant aspects of the narrative be included in the final disability retirement packet. Things which do not provide a compelling basis for proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, the necessary criteria for meeting the legal standard to be approved for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS or, just as importantly, things which will harm a disability retirement application– they should be left out of the final narrative.

Such issues surrounding a “hostile work environment” or a harassing supervisor — such perspectives or narrative formulations which come close to the dangerous precipice of showing that one’s medical disability is merely a “situational” disability (those medical conditions which are specifically confined to a specific situation in a specific agency’s office environment) — should certainly be left out of the final narrative. This brings up a further point, which I have touched upon many times in the past: a person without an attorney to formulate the narrative in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is often too close to his or her own case, and cannot objectively present the proper narrative to the Office of Personnel Management.

Seven False Myths about OPM Disability Retirement

1) I have to be totally disabled to get Postal or Federal disability retirement.
False: You are eligible for disability retirement so long as you are unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of your job. Thus, it is a much lower standard of disability.

2) My injury or illness has to be job-related.
False: You can get disability even if your condition is not work related. If your medical condition impacts your ability to perform any of the core elements of your job, you are eligible, regardless of how or where your condition occurred.

3) I have to quit my federal job first to get disability.
False: In most cases, you can apply while continuing to work at your present job, to the extent you are able.

4) I can't get disability if I suffer from a mental or nervous condition.
False: If your condition affects your job performance, you can still qualify. Psychiatric conditions are treated no differently from physical conditions.

5) Disability retirement is approved by DOL Workers Comp.
False: It's the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) the federal agency that administers and approves disability for employees at the US Postal Service or other federal agencies.

6) I can wait for OPM disability retirement for many years after separation.
False: You only have one year from the date of separation from service - otherwise, you lose your right forever.

7) If I get disability retirement, I won't be able to apply for Scheduled Award (SA).
False: You can get a Scheduled Award under the rules of OWCP even after you get approved for OPM disability retirement.